Church Tax Story

For those who didn't know....Germany runs a 'church-tax', which is more or less....a voluntary tax.  Article 140 of the Basic Law (the Constitution) covers this and lays out the basic situation.  I should note that while some think that this started in the 1949 era....it actually started back in 1919 with the Weimar Constitution.  The law lays out the two essential parts of the tax....(1) the choice of donating is up to the individual (meaning you don't have to give), and (2) the state will have a method to collect and distribute the money to the two main church units of Germany (Lutherans and Catholics).  The amount involved?  When you determine your normal tax amount (say 10,000 Euro), then an amount of 8-percent to 9-percent (depending on which state you are registered) will be calculated (so you end up with an additional 800 to 900 Euro on top of the 10,000 Euro).

So, there's been a light discussion in Germany for several years revolving around the Islamic religion.  They aren't included in the religious group with Article 140.  So Muslims don't pay the church tax. 

Naturally, you'd start to think about Islamic 'centers' and wonder then.....how they are funded, built, or covered financially. Well....it's typically money coming from outside of Germany (oil rich nations fund the projects and charity operations).  Potentially bad influence via this method?  This has been brought up on a number of occasions.

So I noted today via ARD (public TV, Channel One) that the topic came up nationally. 

Elements of the Merkel coalition are discussing the matter and suggest that it wouldn't be very difficult to create this tax vehicle (simply a slight revision to article 140).  Then 'members' would pay the tax and this would eliminate the need for Turkey or Saudi Arabia to fund all of these Islamic centers.

But the odd piece to this idea (not mentioned in the story) is that if you chose to NOT pay.....you can't get the special privileges of a church (getting married, or having your funeral).  You would be basically putting a high number of Muslims who make a working man's salary into the position that he'd have to 'cough-up' 300 to 500 Euro a year that he currently takes home (if you do the basic math).  If they refused to pay....would the Islamic centers deny them their privileges?  It's hard to guess how the various groups would handle this.

The odds in 2019 that this will be a topic for the Bundestag?  I suspect it'll come up.  But it might create a bigger mess in the end.